‘Supergirl’ 2.05: “My Whole Life I’ve Been a Sidekick”

As if National City didn’t have enough heroes, it gets one more in this week’s entry of ‘Supergirl’… from a most unlikely source.

This week’s episode opens very entertainingly. Kara (who is now officially Mon-El’s guardian) introduces him to the world and brings him in for his first day of work at CatCo. First, though, she works on his wardrobe, starting with a bow tie (’cause bow ties are cool!) and ending with a pair of glasses so he looks fairly similar to Clark Kent. He also gets a new name: Mike Matthews.

Once at work, Kara takes a walk with Jimmy outside to talk with him about Mon-El. All of a sudden, an SUV pulls up on the sidewalk in front of them and some guys jump out to rob a bank. Kara quickly turns into Supergirl, but when she tries to stop the robbers, one of them shoots her with some kind of laser rifle that zaps her around pretty good. Jimmy jumps into action and kicks ass for a few seconds, until he gets knocked down as well. The robbers speed off. Supergirl notices that Jimmy’s camera (which used to belong to his father) was crushed in the melee.

At the DEO, Winn figures out that the gun used on Supergirl came from alien tech. A new broadcast from Project Cadmus leads everyone to the conclusion that Cadmus must be supplying bad guys with alien weaponry.

Later, Lena Luthor stops by CatCo to invite Kara to an upcoming fundraiser gala, and Mike talks his way into getting invited as well.

When the robbers strike another target, Supergirl flies to the rescue. They distract her by shooting a police car (and the officer behind the wheel) with an anti-gravity weapon that causes it to fly off skyward. Supergirl is so sidetracked saving the police officer that the bad guys get away again.

In the aftermath of the latest attack, Alex meets with Maggie and suggests that they should hang out sometime. Maggie asks Alex if she’s into girls. Alex insists that she isn’t, though the look on her face certainly suggests that she might be.

Speaking of characters pairing off with one another, Kara catches Mon-El and Eve Teschmacher about to do the nasty on top of a copy machine. How this guy makes it through his first day without getting fired is anyone’s guess.

Jimmy goes to see Winn at the DEO. He pretends to be there just to see how Winn is doing, but he actually tries to find out where the bad guys might strike next. When he learns that they’re watching the Federal Reserve, Jimmy heads there, donning a hoodie and carrying a baseball bat. When the bad guys show up, he tries to stop them, but he’s no match for their alien weaponry. Before the bad guys leave, they use one of the weapons to collapse a building, and Jimmy has to get everyone inside to evacuate.

Winn sees the security camera footage from the Federal Reserve and figures out that Jimmy was the hooded figure, so he goes to CatCo to confront him and ask what he thought he was doing. Jimmy wants Winn to make him a suit and a weapon so that he can be a hero, but Winn smartly suggests that Jimmy is just going to get himself killed. However, Jimmy says he won’t stop. He wants to be a man his father would be proud of. Winn is worried that Jimmy will wind up just like his father… six feet under.

The guys who have been ripping off banks meet with the woman who runs Project Cadmus (Brenda Strong). As the DEO suspected, she’s been supplying them with alien weapons in order to turn the public against aliens. The head robber, a guy named Miner, says that they want to target Lena Luthor’s charity event next because a lot of rich people will be there, and he needs her to equip them with some new guns. The woman (who still hasn’t been given a name on the series) refuses and tells him not to mess with Luthors. When Miner insists that he’s doing it anyway, she warns him that he does so at his own peril.

Just as Alex is about to tell Kara that she might be kinda, sorta gay, Lena arrives at Kara’s place asking if she can set up a meeting with Supergirl. Later that evening, Supergirl visits Lena at the Luthor building and gets invited to the fundraiser. Lena wants Supergirl’s protection at the gala. So, now both Supergirl and Kara have been invited to the same event.

Sure enough, the crooks attack Lena’s gala and Supergirl springs into action, resulting in this episode’s big action sequence. In a nice change of pace, it’s actually Lena Luthor who saves the day. Winn dives under a table to hide and finds Lena there readying a device that will disable the bad guys’ alien weaponry. Working together, the two activate the device and make the alien weapons explode.

The episode wraps up with Winn agreeing to help Jimmy with his new superhero endeavor. Mon-El gets fired from his CatCo job. Alex confesses to Maggie that she might have been right about her liking girls. Finally, viewers learn that the mysterious woman running Project Cadmus is actually Lena Luthor’s mom!

Episode Verdict

This is easily my favorite episode of the new season. It has a great mix of humor and action. Mon-El is turning out to be a really fun character, and although I think it’s kind of silly for Jimmy to believe he can be a superhero, at least the writers have given the character something interesting to do. J’onn/Hank doesn’t appear in this episode at all, but it looks like he’ll have plenty to do next week.

About Shannon Nutt

Shannon is the former Editorial Director for DVD Empire, a former staff reviewer for DVD Talk, and has spent over a decade reviewing and writing about DVD and Blu-ray online. A life-long movie buff, Shannon also holds a B.A. in History. When he isn't discussing movies, he loves debating politics and world events.

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